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June 21, 2007

Ballistic: DiMera vs. Brady

One of the things I love about Days of Our Lives is the way it can be profoundly awesome in the ironic way and profoundly awesome, period. The same people who brought us Nell Lexie just one week ago crafted an episode of television that was well written, well acted, compelling and drew upon decades of show history. It's a little weird how a show can veer from cheesy to legitimately good in the span of seven days, but you know what, I am not going to question it, I am along for the ride and enjoying it. Hogan and I are totally back on.

How fantastic was the dramatic return of Anna?!

I knew that it was coming and I am also completely unfamiliar with the character of Anna (I wasn't born yet when she made her Salem debut and all I know about her character is that she's Carrie's mom, and then some information gleaned from the Days of Our Lives 30th Anniversary book that I got when I was in middle school [shut up!]; she lied about being sold into white slavery, but actually had multiple sclerosis? That's so soapy!) but that did not detract from how fantastic it was.

The unsaid ending to that sentence was "well on your way to a life that finds you shunned by a society frightened of your inability to move your face or open your mouth when you speak. I'm praying for you".

I felt quite sorry for Anna when she was trying to catch up with her former family and everybody was like, "Shut up and get to the letters, woman". Especially Marlena and her velvet blazer; first of all, it's June. And second of all, she was sporting major bitchface the entire episode. "There's no time for reminiscing, Anna". Geez, Marlena. A little bit jealous that Anna's the mother of Roman's good daughter and yours is a (cute as hell and totally awesome, but still) sociopath?

And poor Leann Hunley. She goes from deflowering Pacey Witter to flirting with the faux Roman Brady. Ouch.

I love how cute Bo and Hope are with each other, even when they aren't doing anything but sitting next to each other. They seem like a happy married couple and don't need to constantly nuzzle each other's hands/moan orgasmically while they discuss a family tragedy like some people in gross velvet blazers that I am not going to mention right now.

This sort of veers off of the "Woo! Days is awesome!" theme, but it needs to be asked: what the hell is with Allison Sweeney's hair? Again, I think she's adorable, but why does her hair look like she's supposed to be in the audience of a Whitesnake concert? It's not a good look. Please make it stop.

The DiMera family rules. I don't know what part of their scenes was my favorite.

My second favorite thing was James Scott, because he's dreamy. I think the way that EJ sucks up to Stefano is hilarious. It's so, "Love me best, father, I'm ever so loyal to you".

My third favorite thing was Thaao Penghlis. He is not even trying with the accent anymore, is he? He says one word with his natural Australian accent, then suddenly becomes someone from the Bronx before adopting a sinister European accent. At one point today, he was vaguely Southern.

I am also convinced that he tans daily and lives on a diet of carrots and yams.

Stupid Celeste, though. I really wanted a full DiMera dinner with EJ, Tony and Lexie. While Tony and EJ bickered, Lexie could have hissed at them. But, no, Celeste and her cleavage had to interfere.

Perhaps it was all for the best. Nell Lexie surely would have become agitated at some point during the dinner and leaped onto the table and we all saw that the dinner table was perhaps the cheapest piece of crap on the Days set at the moment and it would have collapsed and glass would have flown all over and could have cut James Scott's face. Seriously, did they buy that at the dollar store? Thaao Penghlis was shaking his leg at one point in the scene and I swear, the entire table looked like it was going to flip over. I thought that without Farah Fath and her cosmetics fetish on contract, they'd have an extra $3,000 weekly, but I guess I was wrong.

As brill as the DiMera scenes were, I wish that Kristen had finagled a way out of white slavery and was part of the DiMera renaissance. I know that they were in a budgetary crisis at the time, but not scooping up Eileen Davidson as soon as she was fired from Y&R was a really bad move. She would have been the cherry on top of the brilliantly evil and horribly accented sundae. The poor woman has to be part of a love triangle on The Bold and the Beautiful with Ronn Moss and his mullet and the guy who used to play Brady on Days. Tragikstan!

Where is Billie? Should I be worried about her? I'd file a missing persons report, but we've all seen how the Salem PD works.

Comments

Anna's return was great. You should check out some really great Anna/Tony clips on youtube. They were extremely entertaining, funny and sexy together. Lots of bickering and lots of making up. I'm totally curious to see what that reunion's going to be like!

Ok, I rewatched the clip and really don't think Marlena's blazer is velvet. But besides that - let's lay off her a little. IMO, she and John are in the same "cute married couple" category as Bo and Hope. I don't think you can enjoy B&H's cuddling while you diss J&M's.

And you are right on about Kristen... it would have been great to have her back. Maybe they don't want people to see her and remember EJ is supposed to be 9 years old?

You can totally enjoy B&H without enjoying J&M. It's completely possible. Kristian and Bo's Actor look like they're still composed mostly of organic materials. DHe and DHer are not so composed. At least, not evidently. I love BoHo.

I loved the DiMeeting though I too wish Lexie had been there.

I love Anna. I know nothing more about her than what I've read today, but she's great so far. And her face moves! Like a real girl's.

Today's episode rocked. I watched every minute--it almost took an hour to get through the first time. Lucas needs to disappear, but otherwise it was fantastic. My favorite moment was a throw away line from Anna about liking the Brady's but acknowledging that it wouldn't work because they're broke. BWAH!

I know I certainly enjoy Bo & Hope while loathing Marlena and John. The DHs insist on behaving like they are sex starved teenagers. That kiss that closed the show on Tuesday was frighteningly gross. I don't want to see ANYBODY behave like that unless I'm watching one of the sex shows on HBO--even then I'm still horrified, but I'm at least prepared. And, to add insult to injury, the DHs behave as though they honestly think that shit is cute--like they're sexing it up for the over 50 set. Except they're simply grossing most of us out--not because they are older, but because they are pathetically trying to recaputre somehting they lost when both of them lost the ability to emote with their faces. Eating someone's face while simpering like a school girl--all the first, your children and grandchildren are in mortal peril doesn't make you sexy. It makes you a self-involved unware set of losers. Kristen Alfonso and Peter Reckell act like adults in love--who are really sexy and loving and hot.

And I agree John and Marlena need a hose. I liked them years ago, today their response to everything is to swoon into each other's arms and have Marlena ride the baloney pony...or maybe the other way around, who knows with those two.

Hey there, influx of pro-John and Marlena posters? Let's say hypothetically you aren't regular readers but you just come over here from a message board in order to post insults (and not even creative ones, sadly)? Hypothetically we have this cool function where we delete comments. Also, hypothetically, there's not really any such thing as "anonymous" in the blog commenting world, and we can ban people via IP address.

If you don't like something you read here, fine. It's even possible to express your disagreement without getting personal, or with a bit of humor. Seriously! But don't bring your fandom wars here and don't, how can I put this delicately? Be an asshole. It helps neither you nor the soap couple you are way over-invested in.

Thanks to others for keeping it civil, and apologies to those for whom this will make no sense because of all the deleted comments.

Oh thank god, you noticed that Thaao Penghlis is orange too. The other day I said to myself, "Something is wrong with the color on my tv" and I tried to fix it, but he stayed orange. I thought I needed a new tv, but no! He is just naturally orange.

Also, John and Marlena and their teenage makeout sessions in public are perhaps the creepiest thing I've seen on Days in, I think, ever, and I've been watching since ... okay, let's just say I remember the first time Anna was on.

How awesomely awesome were the dueling family meetings? I think the DiMeeting was even better than the Brady bunch but both were highly entertaining (thanks Anna!!). And today we get to throw Steve in the mix. It ought to be another great day.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the show(I know, I never thought I'd type those words either), it was a shame to do simultaneous family meetings that made the Brady family look boring, with no sense of timing. The Dimera's rocked the show, and they had less than half the number of people at their meeting. The dueling accents alone made my day.

"He tans daily and lives on a diet of carrots and yams" Brilliant.
Brilliant. I cant even adequatley express how hilarious that was. Yes Kristan would have definatley been the cherry on top. Now what are your views on Lucas? They need to kill his character, I find myself yelling at him to "shut up".

I love you guys, but bashing Celeste is unacceptable... ever. She carried this show with her ridiculous accent through the travesties that were Mason Blanche AND Aremid. She somehow managed to use her tarot cards to predict 12 or so murders and communicate with the ghosts of Maggie, Caroline, and Roman, only to turn around the next week to used the same cards to discover that everyone was alive... and during the same storyline managed to get lightning thrown at her by Satan.

Lexie, great as her whole Nell thing was, could never have added the camptastic awesomeness that Celeste brought to the DiMera DiNner. I'd personally like to see her go after Roman, just for the genius bitch fight that would come from Anna (and the weirdly possessive Marlena).

In other news, I think that Hogan Sheffer should pen an episode that is various closeups and longshots of James Scott in various states of undress. He is the hottest thing on daytime... nay, television, save for the tanning lamp Thaoo has been resting under.